The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) was founded in 1997 with the aim of "expand[ing] the spiritual, ritual, intellectual, and political opportunities for women with the framework of halakha

Halakha

Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...

," or Jewish law. http://www.jofa.org/about.php/who/mission

History and mission

According to its website, JOFA's mission is to advocate the "meaningful participation" of women, to the fullest extent possible with the framework of halakha, in family life, synagogue

Synagogue

A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

s, houses of learning, and within the Jewish community in general.

JOFA was founded in 1997 after the first International Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy, organized by Jewish-American writer Blu Greenberg

Blu Greenberg

Blu Greenberg is an American writer specializing in Modern Judaism and women's issues. She is the author of On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition and Black Bread: Poems, After the Holocaust ....

. The organization has grown from a small group who met at Greenberg's kitchen table to become a professionally staffed, international alliance, active in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, and England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. http://www.jofa.org/about.php/who/history

See also

• Role of women in Judaism
  Role of women in Judaism
  The role of women in Judaism is determined by the Hebrew Bible, the Oral Law , by custom, and by non-religious cultural factors...
  
  
• Jewish feminism
  Jewish feminism
  Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to improve the religious, legal, and social status of women within Judaism and to open up new opportunities for religious experience and leadership for Jewish women...
  
  
• Tamar Ross
  Tamar Ross
  Tamar Ross is a professor of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University.She has scholarly expertise in the thought of Abraham Isaac Kook, the modern Musar movement and the ideology of Mitnaggedism, and Judaism and gender...
  
  
• Partnership Minyan
  Partnership minyan
  Partnership minyan is a term used by the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance to describe a prayer group that, according to its adherents, conforms to the strictures of Orthodox Judaism while still allowing for parts of the services to be led by both men and women...
  
  
• Shira Hadasha
  Shira Hadasha
  Kehillat Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem was founded in 2002 by a group of Jerusalem residents, including Tova Hartman. Its website describes its purpose as the creation of "a religious community that embraces our commitment to halakha, tefillah and feminism" in response to "the growing need of many...
  
  
• Ms. magazine rejects AJC ad honoring three Israeli women
• Orthodox Jewish feminism
  Orthodox Jewish feminism
  Orthodox Jewish feminism is a movement in Orthodox Judaism which seeks to further the cause of a more egalitarian approach to Jewish practice within the bounds of Jewish Law...
  
  

Further reading

• Adler, Rachel. "Feminist Judaism: Past and Future", Crosscurrents, Winter 2002, Vol. 51, No 4.
• Greenberg, Blu. (1981) On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition. Jewish Publication Society of America. ISBN 0-8276-0226-X
• ____________. "Will There Be Orthodox Women Rabbis?". Judaism 33.1 (Winter 1984): 23-33.
• ____________. "Is Now the Time for Orthodox Women Rabbis?". Moment Dec. 1992: 50-53, 74.
• Nussbaum Cohen, Debra. "The women’s movement, Jewish identity and the story of a religion transformed," TheJewishWeek.com, June 17, 2004
• Ross, Tamar. Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism. Brandeis University Press, 2004.
• Wolowelsky, Joel B. "Feminism and Orthodox Judaism", Judaism, 188, 47:4, 1998, 499-507.